r/FriendshipAdvice

This is a bit of a rant.

Did the landscape of what the bare minimum is for relationships drop to the point that random texting with little content is the new bar for most for what constitutes a friendship / relationship?

I'm in the xennial age range and it's weird watching social engagement among my peers shift to nearly all para-social (social media posts + likes / comments, random frequency texting with little content, no availability for phone calls or getting together in real life). It's not just among some of my formerly closer friends, but true in a broad sense as I look to find new relationships in consensus, tangible, shared reality.

People seem to complain about being isolated and lonely for human connection and at the same time not allow themselves to put any effort into addressing that need. I'm not talking about going to place with people in it and claiming connection, I'm talking about coffee dates, phone calls, walks in the park ... anything that involves directly engaging another human being.

Anyone else feel similarly and as a result, demoted a bunch of people to barely acquainted now? It's sad.

to make a long story short, my friend broke up with someone and immediately started dating someone else. this person is a bad person for them, I seen this pattern before and before, they date someone that excites them for the wrong reasons (smokes, freaky, etc) and it always ends bad. I dont know what to do. this person is against everything that I thought my friends stood for and it making me really upset. what should I do?

My (25F) best friend (25F) of 15 years was planning a birthday trip for her 25th at the end of March. In the first week of March, she asked a few of us (including me) if we wanted to join. The cost was around £300 for a three-day trip. I had just started a new job after 4 months of unemployment, and while money was tight, I thought I’d manage for her, so I said yes.

Over the next couple of weeks, my situation changed. My parents, who I was partly relying on, said they couldn’t comfortably help anymore due to other expenses. At the same time, I got another job opportunity and interviews were starting mid-March. This meant taking time off for interviews and then more leave for the trip- during my first month at work. Given how work culture is here, I didn’t want to risk looking unreliable if things didn’t work out.

With finances and work both becoming issues, I decided to back out. I told her about two weeks before the trip—nothing had been booked yet, but it was close to when she needed to. I had been keeping her in the loop throughout, and when she needed a final answer, I politely declined.

She offered to cover my share so I could pay her back later, and others did too, which was kind, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. More importantly, taking leave from work was still a problem. I also didn’t want to delay her plans, so I stepped out, even though I knew it might affect the group booking.

After declining on call, I sent her a long message apologising and explaining everything again. She replied, “I don’t feel like talking. Let’s talk later.” I respected that and gave her space.

A week passed—no response. I texted “hello”—no response. A few days later, I called. She didn’t pick up, just texted, “I don’t feel like talking, I’ll reach out when I’m ready.”

In the meantime, she planned a trip somewhere else. Granted, it wasn’t the same place, but still a hilly area with a forest reserve—exactly the kind of trip she wanted. They went, and I got to know through her friend’s stories. I called her at 12 on her birthday to wish her. It was awkward, and I wasn’t even sure if she’d take my call, but she did.

It’s now the first week of April. My sister had an art event today, and she came with her mum (they’re close to our family). We didn’t talk about any of this, just kept things cordial.

To be fair, I’ve reached out multiple times now, and I’ve left the ball in her court because she’s the one not ready to talk. But this whole time, I’ve been feeling really angry. It’s not like I backed out to ruin her birthday—why would I ever want to miss a trip with my friends, especially my BFFs birthday? I have massive FOMO, and I still dealt with it because other things had to take priority.

This silent treatment has left me feeling anxious, drained, and overthinking everything I said or did. It’s also making me question what this friendship means to her—that she would punish me for having genuine reasons. I’m just angry at this point.

Do i deserve this silent treatment and anxiousness that comes with it? Am I the one in the wrong here? I genuinely want to know, because I’m done thinking this through myself.

I always thought I wanted friends. I did have good friends in the past, but I don’t speak to them as much anymore. I have this idealized version of a good friend group that never comes to pass. It’s not because they or I are bad people. I simply don’t enjoy hanging out with anyone. Every time I do try, I find it exhausting and performative. I’ve cycled through people of all sorts and I find it all so meaningless. I want something deeper and meaningful and they never provide any of that. Maybe I should really just be looking for a boyfriend if that’s the case. I don’t know anymore. I find having friends a waste of time at this point. I’m also told friends aren’t meant to fulfill that longing for a very deep connection, so maybe I’m searching for something that isn’t realistic. I once imagined having a core friend group who cares about one another the way a family does. I imagined living a full life just with friends and feeling cared for by one another in a deep and powerful way, I suppose, probably because I romanticized this idea of that core friend group. I thought I wanted that even more than I wanted a boyfriend, but now I just don’t think that’s possible anymore idk. I feel broken being unable to connect with other people who could be friends. Someone please help me make sense of this. It really is fucking with my sense of identity to realize my search for companionship in friends may have been pointless all along.

Tl;dr: I never enjoy hanging out with friends even though I’ve thought all I ever wanted in life was a good friend group. Am I looking in the wrong places for a deep connection of this sort?

I have a friend I’ll call “Jake”. We’ve known each other for around 8 years. We got especially close recently. I told him about how one of my biggest insecurities is my intelligence. I always believed that I was an idiot or not intelligent since I didn’t do amazing academically.

He always made the same two jokes, he would make a joke about me being fat or being stupid. I tried not to take it seriously but it they got to me. I told him to tone it down and he said he would. However recently he did something that made me question our friendship.

I was asking our gc of friends if something we had discussed was still happening but they had been texting and decided to cancel it. I wanted to make sure incase anything changed. Then Jake went off on me, making jokes about me being stupid or comparing me to Patrick from SpongeBob but when I texted him privately to stop being an asshole about it he took a screenshot and sent it into the group chat for everyone to see and told me to “calm down and cop on it’s just a joke”. I blocked him immediately but texted him recently to tell him how I feel. The biggest issue is anytime there is conflict he either says 1. I’m overreacting 2. I need to be more mature 3. Simply says ok, stops for a period before starting again. It’s difficult to avoid him and sometimes I want to still be friends with him for the good moments but I’m wondering if it’s worth it when he’s this exhausting.

Hey! I'm looking for some advice here and want to check myself to make sure I am not overreacting in this situation. I have done quite a lot of work on myself and I have done consistent work in therapy for a couple of years now.

People in my environment started pointing out how much I have changed, which I am pretty okay with, but my friendships have also changed.

I have this friend that I was very close with that now started to turn to AI as a therapy companion, saying how she is healing.

She started saying how we (all her friends) can no longer understand her and how we all take the wrong thing from what she says and create the wrong impression about her. She is always trying to frame the narrative so you would agree with her. As a consequence, she ends up arguing with everyone, including myself, and trying to set the boundary of "do not tell me your opinion." I already processed it with AI.

The majority of our conversations have now become her complaining about how a friend is misjudging her because of something she said, or us arguing.

I appreciate AI can help, but I feel she lives in an illusion. I tried to speak with her, but we always end up arguing as she always has to have the final word.

My online friend who i’ve known for almost a year and got close to told me she feels overwhelmed and pressured by me and wants our dynamic to be casual and talk less often. (It’s always been more emotionally deep and we talked everyday mostly)

Idk how to cope i’ve been crying all night because i really valued it and i don’t have anyone else to share such a connection with.

Hi everyone! I just wanted to say that I’ve been feeling very down lately. I(24F) met a new friend at work (F19) and we’ve became instantly close. She loves to yap a lot and I really enjoy that about her. In the past, she would be criticized about that from previous ex friends. We would always talk, go out and shop. We would also get comments from others that we look like sisters. It felt like I had a second little sister. English is her second language but her native language is Thai. She started to become friends with this girl (25) who mainly speaks Thai and a little English. I don’t mind making new friends but due to the language barrier, it was difficult getting to know her. I would still continue to eat lunch with them. Over time, they have gotten closer and I’ve been feeling left out. They both share the same culture and same language. It’s so hard for me to understand and she (19) would have to translate it for me. They’ve been hanging out more often and I don’t mind. It just hurts that I can’t connect with the other girl due to the language barrier. :( What should I do? ( I told them that I would learn the language, just so I can speak to the other girl but they insisted not to since it’s a difficult language to learn).

TW: For mentions of SA

My friends (to make a long story short) essentially dropped me at the most vulnerable time in my life, I was afraid I was pregnant, and that the baby was a result of sa/🍇. However, I am thankfully not pregnant, but still, the time I was worrying was very difficult and scary. Their reasoning for dropping me was essentially that I would 'choose a guy over our friendship.' I personally find this to be false, as I saw them almost every day in school and tried my best to spend time with them, and I always said yes to hang out with them outside of school. On top of that, I tried to always answer their FaceTime calls while trying to also juggle my relationship with my boyfriend. And although I can get where they're coming from, I find it a little hypocritical, as one of my other friends does the exact same things I do, and my friend dismisses it completely.

I feel hurt, betrayed, and just so alone, as these were my main friend group. But despite all that, I still miss them and care for them. Like these were MY people, the ones I always went to for anything, the highs and lows. Sure, I have other friends, but it just isn't the same. Especially with senior year coming to a close, I see everyone else with their friend groups partaking in fun activities with their friends, and I'm just there. Prom, senior skip day, graduation, and everything else, I'm afraid that I'm going to be alone and waste the last few months of my high school experience, and not live it with the friends I love and care about the most.

It's been over six months since we talked and we stopped talking because both our parents didn't like that we were friends. It's been a while since we said anything to each other, but they were the first friend I had in years. I understand that because our friendship was online that it maybe wasn't that deep, but I feel that some of the things they said were genuine. I feel like deep down things would've been okay and that if my parents trusted me, I could make things okay. But it's been a while and I've been missing them lately. I've tried making new friends or reaching out to old ones, but the feeling isn't the same or the conversation falls apart easily because I'm not motivated to respond to their texts for some reason.

i 24F still have a “friendship” with my ex boyfriend 31M.

we dated for a year and broke up when it got too real for him. he cheated multiple times throughout the relationship. his mom publicly humiliated me, i met all of his family and he met mine. everytime i would catch him cheating i still stayed…exposed me to potential stds and he did not care no matter how much i cried…only did he really realize in the end what he was doing and told me his therapist said he had groomed me. i lost around 45 pounds during that relationship, i always felt like i had to compete with random people on the internet and that was never enough…my therapist said i stayed so long because i felt bad for him and was trying to help him during a tough time in his life. which i believe is true, but i also friend and extreme attachment to him, and he knows that. we see eachother every week at least once in person , still text good morning and goodnight and i loves yous every day. when we see eachother in person we always end up having sex, so it feels like we’re dating without the label and it’s crushing me. he always said he felt like i had moved on too fast in the relationship and he felt pressured to marry me which is what lead him to cheat on me. we lived together a few months after my parents kicked me out and that’s when his mood got worse. i do appreciate him letting me stay with him, but i feel like im hurting myself by continuing to be in this push and pull “friendship”, i want to encourage him to do his best, but it crushes me to feel like i was just a stepping stone to him.

Hi everyone,

I recently joined college and met a girl, we started off pretty solid and she is a great person to be with.
But, she is extremely lazy and judgemental about my city (she has come to my city to pursue education because her boyfriend is also from my city).
She keeps commenting and judging about my city, is very dismissive about my culture.
Worst of all, she is extremely negative doesntt study about exams then cribs last minute, we had an important assignment and she didnt prepare till last minute even after multiple reminders.
I do not like this behaviour at all and she makes me negative and drains energy out of me, what do i do, I want to reduce my interactions with her to safeguard the friendship.

I have a friend who I made a year ago through a mutual, though I wouldnt consider us close at all — we’ve gone out for lunch a couple times and she’ll respond to my story occassionally. However, recently she asked if she could come with me and my friends to a concert together and she now seems to think we’re best friends.

She now keeps sending me messages every day and reels on insta saying things like “could be us! omg can this be us?” and asking if we can match outfits next time and just acting SO overly close that it’s freaking me out. I’m uncomfortable with her behaviour due to some other things that have happened that I won’t delve into here, but I really don’t wish to be friends with her anymore.

I’ve literally ignored all her messages for a week now and she keeps messaging me random things, has asked me if I want to hang out like three times, and I really just want to ghost her at this point because she’s not getting the hint.. I don’t want to continue a friendship with this person so I don’t want to make any excuses or give her false hope, but at the same time I’m really conflict averse so I’m not sure if I should send a message before I ghost.. I was hoping she would get the idea from my lack of replies so I could just fade out of her life but she just wont stop.

Hi, I have these two friends. We were all friends before they started dating. We go on calls every week. However, recently, every time we call they just flirt the whole time. I ignored it at first as I figured maybe they were just in some kind of honeymoon phase for lack of a better term. Yesterday, we were all going on a call for my birthday which I was very excited about. But once everyone was in the call they just decided to flirt the entire time and ignore me. I was getting pretty upset as I've been having a rough time recently (with just life stuff) and I wanted to be able to celebrate. I thought "oh well maybe they forgot" so I kept subtly mentioning that it was my birthday. They brushed it off and kept flirting. Neither of them even said happy birthday. I feel selfish for it cuz they're a couple so ofc they're gonna flirt, but I don't wanna be a third wheel and feel ignored on a day that was supposed to be about me. Sorry if this was hard to read I have trouble expressing this kind of stuff

For some context, there was a pretty big falling out with my high school friend group last year that resulted in me no longer talking to one of my closest friends, let's call her D. While nothing dramatic happened between the two of us, D badly damaged the relationship between herself and my best friend, let's call her M. They'd been friends since 2nd grade, so M was obviously incredibly hurt by this. D and M have since talked things out, but M is no longer talking to her. I also quickly stopped talking to D, out of support for M.

D recently requested to follow me on Instagram, and I've been considering reaching out. I'm not planning on becoming as close as we used to be, but I just want to apologize for how things ended up and leave things between us on good terms. But it feels like I'd be betraying M if I were to talk to her, especially considering how supportive M was while I was arguing with another ex-friend.

Honestly, as I'm typing this out, I'm also wondering if I approached the situation appropriately in the first place. D and I were pretty close, and we never directly fought. Was it wrong for me to just stop talking to her like that? Would it be a good idea to reach out? I've been thinking about this for a bit now, so any advice would be super appreciated.

so first of all i met them on roblox in TSB (Jack, and Sam) like 3 years ago. and they are good, then a friend of their's, Gaser once joined and he blended in. but we started playing with a friend called Akatsuki, he is good, slightly unhinged then i quit for a month, and so did Sam, but he looks like he isn't coming back anytime soon.

after i came back. Akatsuki got his friend called Esedi (i do not know who he is) to join a game with him, Gaser and Jack and i got snapchat to chat with them since my discord got deleted and i lowk didn't want it anymore. at the time the group was only with Jack and Gaser. and then i got Akatsuki's snap because we were becoming good friends. so i invited him to the group. and Akatsuki invited Esedi (once again, i do not know who Esedi is). and thank god i had my notifications silent. because before typing this, i checked the group. and Jack said the n word with an a, Gaser said the n word with the hard r, Akatsuki also sent the n word hard r, i remember twice. but Esedi spammed paragraphs with just the n word hard r. and everyone was okay with it.

im genuinely considering unfriending them on roblox, snapchat. and everything i might have them on because it doesn't seem like they're gonna distance themselves from Esedi. (by the way, Esedi is white, Gaser and Jack are a mix. and Akatsuki is most likely white or a mix too. i know Esedi is white bevause he sent an image of his arm normally and then sent the same picture but with awfully scribbled black on the arm)

i left the group. and that's all. now im considering unfriending them all.

A childhood friend of mine is getting married soon. We are both in our early 20's, both women. We haven't spent much time together in the last few years because we both went our separate ways and had different circles of friends, but we talk often through text messages and there is still mutual respect. Despite this, she invited me to her wedding. I wouldn't attend for two reasons: One- that I'm struggling financially because I haven't found a job yet and attending a wedding means spending a considerable amount of money, and Two- I don't know anyone there, not even the groom. Two members of my family are pressuring me to go after I told them, because they see me as more of an introvert. So, should I go or not? And if not, how can I politely decline without making her upset? I want honest opinions. What would you do in my situation?

I’ve had many groups of friends over the years. I’m a 25 year old woman now and I’ve honestly never felt so alone. I really feel like I have maybe 2 friends right now, and only 1 truly close friend who happens to be a guy who has a crush on me too which isn’t ideal lmao.

I was in a relationship with another woman until January and I met a girl through her who I ended up meeting a bunch of new people with. Things were great and I felt as though I finally had a nice group who I was seeing a few times a week.

However, ever since the breakup it feels like they’re slowly trying to phase me out. I constantly feel like I’ve done something wrong by the way they’re being with me but idk what it is :( I rarely get invited to things anymore and when I try to reach out it feels like they only see me because they feel guilty if they don’t. They’ve barely been there for me through one of the worst breakups I’ve ever been through and they’re actually hanging out with my ex more than me at the moment (not an issue, we’re now on good terms and have actually met up one on one and had a nice time, it’s just I’d like to be included).

I’m not sure what to do. Part of me wants to just give up and move across the country and start again. I’ve lived here since I started university almost 6 years ago. I’ve lost friends I’ve had for years and I’m just exhausted because my new friends clearly don’t like me for some reason. I feel so stuck and alone rn.

Two years ago in eighth grade, I was talking to a girl on Instagram and we became friends. The thing is she was at my school, but we are both introverts, so we only talked on Instagram. There were two misunderstandings, and I couldn't explain them to her—I just didn't know how. Now it's been two years since we last spoke, and the misunderstandings were because of my friend. I really don’t know what to do now. Should I be honest with her and tell her what happened after two years, because I really want us to be friends again? She's the one I trusted the most and liked, even though we only talked for five months. Should I tell her what happened or not? Just so you know, I'm an INTJ and she's an INTP, so I don’t really know how she would react. Please give me advice. I don’t have many friends, just two, and they're the ones who caused the issue, so I really want to talk to her, but I'm scared. Please help me!

I’m feeling really lost/hurt and could use some outside perspective.

My best friend and I have had a falling out since my wedding, and I don’t know how to move forward. I made her one of my bridesmaids because she’s always meant so much to me, but in the lead-up to the wedding, things already felt a bit off. She didn’t come to my bridal shower or the pre-wedding get-together the night before. I was honestly really hurt, but I pushed those feelings aside because I didn’t want anything to take away from what was supposed to be a happy time.

On the day itself, everything was going beautifully… until later in the evening. She got into some kind of spat with another friend of mine, and it ended with her leaving early, clearly upset. I didn’t fully understand what happened in the moment, and honestly, I was caught up in everything going on - it was my wedding night.

The next day, I tried to arrange picking up some things I had left with her, but she made it obvious she didn’t want to see me. So I asked her directly by text if she was upset with me. She told me that I didn’t stand up for her when my other friend was cold toward her, and that in general, in the lead-up to the wedding, I didn’t make her feel important.

I apologized for making her feel that way and reassured her that she is important to me. But I also told her that the way everything played out crossed a line for me. The day after my wedding, when I thought I’d be in that newlywed bubble, I was instead crying and feeling completely drained.

Since then, I’ve kind of just shut down and avoided dealing with it (head in the sand). She did apologize, but it didn’t feel genuine - it came with a “but” and a lot of justification about her own feelings, which made it hard to accept.

Now I know I can’t just keep ignoring this, but I don’t know what to say or how to approach it. Part of me feels hurt and let down, and i resent that it’s clouded my wedding time. Has anyone been through something like this? What would you do?